right to privacy has been accorded fundamental right status under right to life and liberty .this landmark judgement protects informational privacy as well as biometric privacy.
informational privacy includes all information that we provide online/ govt institutions/private institutions like age, caste , educational qualifications , income , assets ,service chargesheets .
this protection to individual data , however, provides strong ground to information officers (PIOs) to deny any information disclosure citing privacy of individual / corporate.
RTI act itself has grounds to deny information disclosure in section 8 ,11 as follows
- concerning national security and economic interest
- compromising competitiveness of a party involved in business
however , right to privacy provides another ground to deny information sought for public interest
- here are some cases where information sought under RTI may conflict with right to privacy of individual.
caste information - fake caste certificates issued give undue benefit to a person , while depriving the original beneficiary
- assets , salary - public officer involved in corruption amass huge property , however in many RTI filed in such cases are
denied citing privacy .
- educational qualification - in some cases , politicians provide fake educational degrees while submitting affidavits and
misguide public.
- service enquiries / chargesheets - individuals involved in corruption often have chargesheets , but they could be cited
personal informationhere , public interest is the test which balances right to privacy against right to information.
CONCLUSION:an officer involved in public work must come clean to public. such transparency and accountability strengthens public
morale in guise of privacy protection, corrupt officials should not get protection
